Wheat bacteria may ward off plant disease

A Flinders University researcher is digging deep to discover how certain bacterial strains found in wheat can stimulate a plant’s natural defence fighting mechanisms.

Biotech graduate and PhD candidate Tanya Bernardo has spent the past four years studying a beneficial bacterium living in wheat, and the role it plays in helping plants fight off disease.

To support her investigations, Ms Bernardo coated plant seeds with the wheat bacteria before injecting them with a plant pathogen – a biological microbe that causes diseases – to determine whether the bacteria stimulated an immune response.